'Narrative reportage at its best. Just extraordinary' Fatima Bhutto
'A page-turner, a feminist text, and an essential read that is deeply empathetic' Deepa Anappara, author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
A masterly and agenda-setting inquest into how the deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation
Katra Sadatganj. A tiny village in western Uttar Pradesh. A community bounded by tradition and custom; where young women are watched closely, and know what is expected of them.
It was an ordinary night when two girls, Padma and Lalli, went missing. The next day, their bodies were found – hanging in the orchard, their clothes muddied.
In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigated a national conversation about sex, honour and violence.
The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shocking deaths, daring to ask: what is the human cost of shame?
About the Author
Sonia Faleiro is the author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars, which was named a book of the year by the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Economist and Time Out and a novella, The Girl. She is a co-founder of Deca, a cooperative of award-winning writers that created narrative journalism about the world. Her writing and photographs appear in the New York Times, Financial Times, Granta, 1843, Harper's and MIT Technology Review. She lives in London.
Industry Reviews
“Sonia Faleiro 's meticulously researched investigation results in a powerful, unflinching account of misogyny, female shame and the notion of honour”
Observer
“A haunting piece of narrative reporting that lingers in the mind long after the final page is turned. It is difficult to read but difficult to put down. For understanding the challenges facing young women today it is essential reading”
Sunday Times
“At once shocking and mundane, quiet and loud, understated and savage”
Times Literary Supplement
“Faleiro's pithy, cliffhanging chapters fuse true crime with big-picture analysis, blending data with interviews and detail ... A powerful indictment of a society failing its most vulnerable members”
Economist
“Transfixing; it has the pacing and mood of a whodunit, but no clear reveal”
New York Times
